He dressed hurriedly and ate his supper less abstractedly than usual.  It occurred to him that it was a poor meal.  He looked at his children; they were rosy and healthy looking enough—­except Una, and she had never been very strong even when her mother was alive.  They were all laughing and talking—­certainly they seemed happy.  Carl was especially happy because he had two most beautiful spiders crawling around his supper plate.  Their voices were pleasant, their manners did not seem bad, they were considerate of and gentle to one another.  Yet Mrs. Davis had said their behaviour was the talk of the congregation.

As Mr. Meredith went through his gate Dr. Blythe and Mrs. Blythe drove past on the road that led to Lowbridge.  The minister’s face fell.  Mrs. Blythe was going away—­there was no use in going to Ingleside.  And he craved a little companionship more than ever.  As he gazed rather hopelessly over the landscape the sunset light struck on a window of the old West homestead on the hill.  It flared out rosily like a beacon of good hope.  He suddenly remembered Rosemary and Ellen West.  He thought that he would relish some of Ellen’s pungent conversation.  He thought it would be pleasant to see Rosemary’s slow, sweet smile and calm, heavenly blue eyes again.  What did that old poem of Sir Philip Sidney’s say?—­“continual comfort in a face”—­that just suited her.  And he needed comfort.  Why not go and call?  He remembered that Ellen had asked him to drop in sometimes and there was Rosemary’s book to take back—­he ought to take it back before he forgot.  He had an uneasy suspicion that there were a great many books in his library which he had borrowed at sundry times and in divers places and had forgotten to take back.  It was surely his duty to guard against that in this case.  He went back into his study, got the book, and plunged downward into Rainbow Valley.

CHAPTER XV.  MORE GOSSIP

On the evening after Mrs. Myra Murray of the over-harbour section had been buried Miss Cornelia and Mary Vance came up to Ingleside.  There were several things concerning which Miss Cornelia wished to unburden her soul.  The funeral had to be all talked over, of course.  Susan and Miss Cornelia thrashed this out between them; Anne took no part or delight in such goulish conversations.  She sat a little apart and watched the autumnal flame of dahlias in the garden, and the dreaming, glamorous harbour of the September sunset.  Mary Vance sat beside her, knitting meekly.  Mary’s heart was down in the Rainbow Valley, whence came sweet, distance-softened sounds of children’s laughter, but her fingers were under Miss Cornelia’s eye.  She had to knit so many rounds of her stocking before she might go to the valley.  Mary knit and held her tongue, but used her ears.

“I never saw a nicer looking corpse,” said Miss Cornelia judicially.  “Myra Murray was always a pretty woman—­she was a Corey from Lowbridge and the Coreys were noted for their good looks.”